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Reduction of InterfacesLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

The purpose of BAPI and ALE integration is to be able to use ALE business process BAPIs as interfaces.

BAPI reductions are particularly necessary in ALE business processes in which master data is replicated asynchronously:

  • Part of the BAPI parameter is not required for the receiver system, even though it is declared when the BAPI is called.

  • Monitor data transferred into non-SAP systems (non SAP and/or between business partners) (for example, hide fields).

  • Certain data cannot be overwritten in the receiver system.

BAPI reductions can however be used everywhere where asynchronous BAPI calls can be used.

For asynchronous BAPI calls via the BAPI-ALE interface, only the parameters of the BAPI interface relevant for the receiver should be transferred. You can set up BAPI reductions in receiver-dependent filtering in the ALE distribution model. You can create templates for making reductions.

Example

Material master data is replicated from a reference system to a sales and distribution system. As only some of the data on the material is required in the sales and distribution system, a reduction of the BAPI interface, Material.SaveReplica, that contains parameters relevant only to sales and distribution, is specified. You can then specify in the distribution model that with Material.SaveReplica only data relevant to sales and distribution is transferred to the sales and distribution system.

You can carry out BAPI filtering (parameter filtering and reduction) when you maintain the distribution model. Reduction and filter information are part of ALE Customizing data in the distribution model.

BAPI filtering must be explicitly activated when the BAPI-ALE interface is generated.

The reduction of the actual (asynchronous) BAPI call is carried out as a service in the ALE layer.

The reduction service retrieves the details of the filter settings from the distribution model at runtime.

For a receiver or a list of receivers the application development can query the list of parameters to be filled before the BAPI-ALE interface is called. This keeps the read-access to the database as low as possible. (Alternatively the call can take place and it does not affect the result of the filtering.)

You can only set up one BAPI reduction for each sender and receiver pair.

Prerequisites

The basic data of the BAPI reduction is maintained by the BAPI developer after the BAPI has been released and before the BAPI-ALE interface is generated. If a parameter hierarchy is to be used, this has to be specified beforehand.

The BAPI developer must create the BAPI as reducible using relevant parameter types. Mandatory parameters and fields must be specified.

A table listing the prerequisites for using filter services is available in Filtering of Data.

Fully Reducible Parameters

Only table parameters of BAPIs can be fully reduced. A fully reduced table is an empty table in the receiver system.

To fully reduce a table parameter T1 with a checkbox, the following prerequisites apply:

Table Parameter

Structure

T1

Q1

T1X

Q1X

T1X is a checkbox parameter.

Parameters Reducible by Fields

Fields are reduced by converting the obligatory check fields of a BAPI and initializing the relevant fields in the data parameter. The checkboxes must be assigned to the data parameters following the naming and structure conventions.

The following prerequisites apply to reducing fields of parameter P1:

Table Parameter

Structure

P1

S1

P1X

S1X

Structures S1 and S1X must have the same number of fields, whereby the names of the fields in both parameters must be identical and in the same order.

If P1 has a FUNCTION field or key fields, the FUNCTION field in S1 and S1X and each of the key fields have the same data element. All other fields of the checkbox use the data element BAPIUPDATE.

Activities

BAPI reductions must be executed as follows:

  1. Create a reducible BAPI that satisfies the above prerequisites.

  2. Before generating the BAPI-ALE interface, you have to activate data filtering ( Data Filtering Allowed option).

    You can set up the filtering in the distribution model in Customizing by choosing Start of the navigation path IDoc Interface/ALE Next navigation step Modeling and Implementing Business Processes Next navigation step Maintain Distribution Model End of the navigation path.

Result

The generated BAPI-ALE interface enables BAPIs to be filtered as a service in outbound processing.